


Another's Territory

by ChillyHollow



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Ghosts, Halloween, Private Investigators, Surveillance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:35:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25034047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChillyHollow/pseuds/ChillyHollow
Summary: Strike is following a man….
Relationships: Cormoran Strike - Relationship
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11





	Another's Territory

The pub was crowded and loud.Strike pushed his way to the bar and ordered a draft lager.The barmaid who pulled his drink was wearing mouse ears and a fake red clown nose.Halloween got sillier every year.Half the patrons of the pub were in fancy dress of some kind or other.The tall man with the aquiline nose next to him at the bar wore a deerstalker hat and a cape.Deerstalker hat was watching the reflections of the patrons milling around in the big mirror behind the bar.Strike was watching them, too, hoping his mark was still in the bar.It would be easy for a determined man to slip away from him in this crowd.Yes, there he was.The man with the yellow hoodie was at the back table, chatting up a young girl with too much makeup, pigtails and a very short dress over petticoats. 

Strike sipped his lager.It wasn’t bad.He’d never been in this pub before and probably wouldn’t have come in this time if his mark hadn’t.He wanted his pubs to be old fashioned, not tarted up like a Las Vegas saloon.Deerstalker hat was looking at the No Smoking sign stuck on the bar’s mirror with a sneer.Strike knew how he felt.Not being able to smoke in bars any more was a hassle.Smoking in general was a pain these days but he wasn’t about to give it up.He liked smoking, craved the nicotine, and he didn’t want to bow to societal pressure about smoking.The government was a nanny state these days, telling people to give up smoking, stop using plastic bags at the grocery, exercise more, go vegan, wear your seat belt, don’t use your phone while driving—and on and on. 

A very short brunette who appeared to be dressed as a nurse sidled up to Deerstalker and asked him to buy her a drink.“Fuck off,” was his churlish response.Strike smiled.The fake nurse sulked, looked at Strike’s unsympathetic countenance, and went away to find easier prey.Strike checked his mark in the mirror again.The young girl with the pigtails was now in the mark’s lap and they were kissing.Strike took another sip of his lager.Next to him Deerstalker was drinking a small whiskey.Their eyes met in the mirror.Deerstalker said, “Rapist, about to graduate to sexual murder.”

Strike blinked.Then alarmed, he looked for yellow hoodie, who was still there, with his hand up the young girl’s flouncy skirt.Deerstalker said while watching the crowd in the mirror, “Mid-level office worker, lives with a female relative, heavy drinker, loner—sociopath I think you call it these days.Want another?”Deerstalker pointed at Strike’s nearly empty glass.Strike nodded.Deerstalker got the barmaid’s attention without trying and ordered them both another round.

“Thanks,” Strike said.

“Ex military?” Deerstalker asked.“Now private detective?”

Strike nodded.“You?”

“Not military, can’t follow orders.Private detective, though.”

“Following my mark?”

“No, just wandering around, seeing what the old place looks like these days.Used to live around here.”

“London’s changing.Developers everywhere.My building’s about to be razed.”

“They won’t touch mine, not right away.There’s a museum there now.Your boy’s making a move.”

Strike checked the mirror and sure enough, yellow hoodie was standing up.Pigtails was leaning on him, giggling.She’d obviously had too much to drink.His new friend tossed back his whiskey and said, “Coming?”

Strike blinked again.

“Easier to follow with two,” Deerstalker said.Strike nodded.The man was right.He finished his lager and set the glass on the counter.The two men headed for the entrance ahead of Strike’s mark.Strike stopped on the sidewalk and lit a cigarette.His new friend crossed the street and stood looking up and down the road, the very picture of a man trying to hail a cab.Yellow hoodie and the pigtailed girl came out of the pub and headed to the right.Deerstalker gave up on the cab and started walking in the same direction parallel.Strike finished his cigarette, keeping an eye on the pair without seeming to.He ground it out under his heel, put his hands in his pocket, hunched his shoulders into his heavy coat as if he was cold in the crisp October air, and started following the couple. 

The four of them wandered toward Marylebone Road.Yellow Hoodie and his young friend crossed the street and turned into Melcombe Place.Strike thought there was a park two blocks away.He slowed his feet somewhat and noticed that Deerstalker was walking faster.The man knew his business.Strike saw him cross the street at the next main road so that the hunters and their prey were all on the same side.The deerstalker hat was gone, probably shoved into a pocket.It changed his silhouette. 

After five more minutes’ walking, Strike saw the entrance to Dorset Square Gardens.He thought it likely Deerstalker was already in the park, hiding in the shadows.He hoped so, anyway.It was going to be difficult to follow the couple alone and if he was right about Yellow Hoodie’s hobby, the girl with the pigtails was in danger.Strike turned into the park and stopped in the shadows, listening.He heard footsteps to the right so he turned that way.He came to a fork in the path and hesitated.Up ahead someone stepped out of the shadows, someone tall and thin, who pointed left.Strike took the left fork. 

He was walking faster, trying to stay quiet, becoming anxious in the deepening gloom.Up ahead he heard a faint scream and he started to run, ungainly on the gravel path.Another figure was well ahead of him, also running but much steadier on two good legs.Strike came around the corner just in time to see the pigtailed girl on the ground, Yellow Hoodie on top of her pinning her down.He had a knife in one hand.A figure stepped out of the wood line and kicked the knife out of Yellow Hoodie’s hand.He yelped, let go of the girl, and rolled to his feet.He scrambled after the knife but Deerstalker was fast and had him in an iron grip.Strike ran up, secured the knife, and helped push Yellow Hoodie to the ground.He was fighting frantically, and it took both Strike and his new friend to bend his arms behind him so Strike could handcuff the man.Panting, Deerstalker looked over at the girl who was having hysterics.Ignoring her for now, Strike pulled out his cell phone and called the police to report a murderous attack in Dorset Square’s park.The call made and acknowledged, Strike walked over to the girl who was sobbing.He wasn’t quite sure what to do but his new friend called, “Leave her to John.He’s a doctor.” 

Suddenly there was a fourth man in the park, bending over the girl, speaking to her.He was short in the moonlight, with light hair and a bedside manner.He soon had the girl calm enough to move her to a park bench under a street light where he sat her down and proceeded to examine her.Strike was panting and cursing his leg.The Deerstalker looked up at him from the ground where he had Yellow Hoodie in a stranglehold.Yellow Hoodie’s eyes were jumping all around, looking for escape.There was none, not with three able-bodied men within reach.Strike heard a siren. 

Deerstalker was smiling."I love the chase,” he told Strike.Strike nodded.He was a hunter himself at heart.“The police are on the way,” he told everyone.He took a deep breathe and longed for a cigarette. 

Two uniformed officers were suddenly on hand.Strike explained very briefly that he’d been watching the man in the yellow hoodie, hired by his mother to see what her son got up to when he went wandering at night.She’d been alarmed when he came home with blood on his clothes.Strike said he’d followed the man to the park where he interrupted the attack, helped by two bystanders.For some reason Strike didn’t mention that Deerstalker had been in the pub and helped follow Strike’s mark. More police arrived.The man who was a doctor and a friend of Deerstalker walked over to them and the three men stood watching.“Time to go,” said the shorter man to Deerstalker who nodded and held out his hand to Strike who shook it.“Cormoran Strike,” he said.“Glad of your help.”

“Sherlock Holmes,” said the tall man.“This is my colleague, Dr. John Watson.Happy to help.Like old times, eh, John?”

Strike shook the shorter man’s hand.He wasn’t in costume.He was ordinary but something about the way he stood told Strike he was —or had been—a soldier.“It’s time,” the shorter man repeated.Deerstalker looked at Strike one last time.“The game’s afoot,” he said.And the two men vanished into the shadows just as Wardle appeared and hailed Strike. 

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by “One private detective on another’s territory….”
> 
> Posted by The Tottenham on Tumblr, July 1st, 2020, posting 1 of 3.


End file.
